My U.S. Pat. No. Re 35,022, granted Aug. 22, 1995, and entitled Reduced Size Drive/Frame Assembly For Reciprocating Floor Conveyor discloses a drive assembly composed of a small mounting frame, three drive units and three transverse drive beams, one for each drive unit. My U.S. Pat. No. 5,638,943, granted Jun. 17, 1997 and entitled Drive Assembly For Reciprocating Slat Conveyor discloses a mounting frame that includes a downwardly extending center cavity region for receiving the linear hydraulic drive units.
My U.S. Pat. No. 5,605,221, granted Feb. 25, 1997, discloses a drive assembly (FIGS. 32–34) comprising a plurality of drive units, a transverse drive beam for each drive unit, and mounting structure for the drive units. Other prior art drive units and mounting structure are disclosed by my U.S. Pat. No. 5,353,918, granted Oct. 11, 1994, by U.S. Pat. No. 5,263,573, granted Nov. 13, 1993 to Olaf A. Hallstrom, and by European patent application EP 0 721 901 A1, filed by Cargo Handling Systems, B.V. on Jan. 15, 1996. All of these patents should be carefully considered for the purpose of putting the present invention into proper perspective relative to the prior art.